Auburn Regional: Tigers rely on the big hits, the little game to win opener

Auburn's Trent Mummey is off and running with a base hit (Birmingham News / Hal Yeager)

We'll be back blogging Saturday from the Auburn Regional with live updates and such Here's the game story that appears in Saturday's Birmingham News about Friday's Auburn-Jacksonville State game:

AUBURN - After a game of give-and-take, leads lost and big hits, Auburn closer Austin Hubbard was looking for an easy out.

He found it in the ninth inning.

Hubbard shut down Jacksonville State in a rare 1-2-3 inning, and Auburn held on for a 9-7 win in an NCAA regional game played in front of a capacity crowd of 4,096 in Plainsman Park.

"It was a tough game,'' Hubbard said. "They'd scored. We'd scored. There weren't many shutdown innings. We gave up two, and we'd score three."

Jacksonville State starter Austin Lucas retired the first nine batters - the first time the Tigers have gone so quietly all season -- but the Tigers scored three in the fourth, and all kinds of scoring broke loose. Leads didn't mean much as 12 runs were scored over the next four innings.

"The difference in the game was we couldn't find a way to put up zeroes from the middle innings on,'' said Jacksonville State coach Jim Case.

Auburn advanced to a 6 o'clock game tonight against Clemson, which beat Southern Mississippi 10-1 in Friday's first game. A few hundred tickets for Auburn-Clemson were still available this morning. Jacksonville State will play the Golden Eagles in an elimination game at 2.

Auburn improved to 41-19. The Gamecocks fell to 32-25 - but they didn't go quietly.

They closed to 8-7 in the top of the eighth, scoring two runs after Hubbard came in with a runner on first.

"We knew coming in the type of challenge we were up against, and that's exactly what we got,'' said Auburn coach John Pawlowski.

Auburn hit three homers - by Justin Fradejas, Dan Gamache and Casey McElroy -- and also benefitted from two bunts and smart situational hitting.

"One of the things we talked about going into season was finding different ways to score runs,'' Pawlowski said. "`We hit some home runs, but if you break the game down, it came down to other things. I thought we did a great job with the short game.''

Gamache's homer in the sixth gave Auburn a 6-5 lead, and the Tigers scored two more in the seventh on RBIs from Brian Fletcher and Tony Caldwell.

But even that three-run lead was shaky.

Jacksonville State outfielder Todd Cunningham made sure of that. He went 3-for-5 with a homer and four RBIs.

"We're here to win. We're not here just to play. We gave our chance to win in the end,'' Cunningham said.

Auburn starter Corey Luckie gave up four runs and threw 88 pitches in 4.2 innings before being bailed out by reliever Slade Smith.

Smith allowed an earned run in 2.1 innings, and picked up the win to improve to 4-0.

Jacksonville State's second pitcher, Cody Ponder, allowed a run in 2/3 of an inning and fell to 0-1.

Auburn is starting Grant Dayton, who is 8-2 with a 4.33 ERA, against Clemson's Casey Harman, who is 6-2 with a 4.14 ERA.

Jacksonville State will start Hunter Rivers, who is 3-3 with a 7.32 ERA, in today's elimination game.

"We may not win, but it won't be because we're not ready to play,'' Case said.